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Do you “walk the walk, or just talk the talk”? I’d like to answer yes, but I’m not sure I can. How about you? As Christians, it is important that we don’t just talk up a good game in our daily walk with God.

Paul presented a concept to Titus that stopped me dead in my tracks when I read it:

“To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and the unbelieving nothing is pure. Their minds and consciences are corrupt. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions” (NRSV).

As I ponder those verses I drift back in time to my freshman year in college when I was a little sister to the Kappa Sigma fraternity at Eastern New Mexico University. The Kappa Sig brothers loved my best friend and me because we were so innocent. Being “hot” and “desired-of-men” was reserved for . . . well, hot and desirable girls, of which we were not. The brothers considered us, literally, their little sisters. To them, we were perfect pictures of purity. (Well, maybe except in enjoying “strong drink” a little more than we should have, but that is another post.)

During our time as little sisters, the tacky movie Porkies was released. Knowing how naive and pure-in-thought we were, a big group of brothers invited us to go see it when it came to our local theater. As we filed in and found our seats, our entourage filled an entire row; two girls and a lot of dudes.

As they ever so astutely predicted, us girls did not understand most of the lewd humor. I can still see all the guys leaning forward in their seats with eyes fixed on our reactions to things we didn’t get. The brothers were not disappointed by our innocent reactions.

God doesn’t expect us to go through life with the naiveté that characterized my earlier years, but he does like the idea of a mind and conscience free of corruption. Had I been a hot and desirable co-ed, the scenes in Porkies may not have been such a foreign concepts in my life.

Now that I am all grown up, I know much more about life. I don’t have a mind bent on corruption, but I am aware of impure things. People lie. They possess less than desirable motives. Face it, people can be downright corrupt!

However, despite the fact that corruption permeates every corner of our world, we still need to have pure and godly responses. For example, if we assign motives to others or judge their actions, we are putting ourselves in God’s position; only God knows the heart. When we step into his role we are, in a sense, denying God a part in situations we encounter, and we risk contaminating something we don’t understand. That is not pure and we all do it!

To act like we are God prevents us from reacting according to his guidance. Our actions deny him. Our reactions to things we don’t understand need to be inspired BY God, not acted out like we ARE God. Going back to the saying walk the walk, don’t talk the talk, Christians need to actively profess the truth of God, AND act according to its teaching.

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Shona is a Personality Mechanic who loves helping others "tune up" their everyday relationships, because when understand ourselves, it is easier to understand others. She became a certified personality trainer in March 2007 and received her lifetime certification in June 2011. How did this phlegmatic personality get where she is today?
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